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HYER, MARTHA (1924– ). American actress.
In the former category, surely, lies her role in Abbott
and Costello Go to Mars as secretary to the man whose carefully planned
space flight is hijacked by the film's titular idiots. One barely notices she
is there. But Riders to the Stars offers a stunning contrast: as
scientist Jane Flynn, helping to plan and monitor a pioneering space flight,
she is one of the few beautiful scientists in science fiction films who is
actually convincing as an educated professional (and one must remember she
earned a college degree at Northwestern University), and in scenes where she
expresses her passionate desire to fly into space herself, and her growing
affection for astronaut William LUNDIGAN,
she provides the characteristic stoic spacesuit film with a rare emotional
impact. Watching the film, you will definitely notice she is there—and for
those uninterested in realistic space adventures, she represents the only
reason to watch the film. As for her other genre film of the era, she did the
best she could in Francis in the Navy as the romantic lead in a film
about a talking mule, but it hard to think of any reason to watch that film.
But having demonstrated some genuine talent, Hyer was able
to move away from science fiction film to bigger and better things, and was
briefly considered a major star, appearing alongside celebrated figures as
Jerry LEWIS, Bob Hope, David Niven, Cary Grant, Sophia Loren, Frank Sinatra,
Dean Martin, and Shirley MacLaine, earning an Oscar nomination for her role in Some
Came Running, and almost getting the role of Marion Crane in Alfred
HITCHCOCK's Psycho.
During this time, her nearest approach to a genre film was her necessarily restrained
performance in the reverent Biblical epic The Big Fisherman.
Approaching the age of forty, however, Hyer found herself
drifting back into television roles, first in the many westerns of the early
1960s, later in more contemporary dramas; she also ventured abroad for some
foreign films, beginning with the West German technothriller Mistress of the
World. More significantly, in First Men in the Moon, she was first
lively and assertive as the fiancée of the ne'er-do-well Arnold Bedford (Edward
JUDD); but once they got to the Moon, Bedford morphed into a conventional hero
and Hyer's Kate Callender became a typically helpless damsel in distress. She
was also nicely unsympathetic in the horror film Picture Mommy Dead.
It was in the year that she made that film, however, that
Hyer took on what became her most important role: as the wife of influential
producer Hal Wallis. After continuing to perform for several years, she asked
her husband for a new challenge, and he happily hired her to write the screenplay
for a new movie he was producing, Rooster Cogburn (1975), starring none
other than John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn. Perhaps starting her writing
career with a major motion picture was not a wise move, though, since the film
was so widely panned as to drive both Wallis and his wife into retirement. And
for the past thirty-five years, Hyer has remained out of sight, first as
Wallis's wife, and then as his widow. If she now spends her declining years
watching her old movies, one hopes that she includes Riders to the Stars.
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